But honestly, I don’t see the rationale that gets Huntsmania into the White House. He’s a former governor, which Republicans tend to elect, but there are at least two former governors already in the race and a couple more considering getting in, and all have much more mojo than Huntsman. His kickoff at the Statue of Liberty was meant to echo Reagan’s 1980 kickoff, but Reagan never worked for Carter, and Hunstman is no Reagan. Huntsman is a gray moderate in a time when the Republican electorate is looking for sharp, bright lines.

So I don’t get the Huntsman run at all. Who is his constituency, the gutless “No Labels” crowd? GOP liberals? Who has a feevah and Huntsman is the only cure? I have no idea. I know he did well in a straw poll the other day, but those things are always bought. They’re not reliable at all. If they were, Ron Paul would be president today.

He’s not, and Huntsman won’t be. But hey, those motorcycles he’s not riding in his ads are cool. That’s…something.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

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1.
buzzsawmonkey

Huntsman is the spare unelectable non-conservative RINO candidate, in case Romney should falter. The Democrats really, really want the Republicans to field another McCain.

Reaffirming his belief in climate change last month also isn’t likely to be a big vote-getter for Huntsman in the Republican primary, but that may not be the point. While the media would love to see him win the GOP nomination before they start trashing him, they’d love to not trash him at all — if he runs as a third party candidate in 2012. Huntsman would then be the John Anderson factor in the similarities to the 1980 Carter-Reagan election, but with a little H. Ross Perot thrown in, in that like Ross and unlike Anderson, unlimited access to daddy’s money would make Huntsman far more capable of running a serious campaign in key states which could turn Red in ’12, but might stay blue if Huntsman splits the anti-Obama vote.

Even if he fails to generate a buzz over the next six months among Republican primary voters, expect the big media to keep schmoozing Huntsman, in hopes stroking his ego will push him to keep running all the way until next November.

I sometimes imagine (rarely, it’s a painful exercise) what would be said about ME, if I was running for national office.

Because I hold some “live and let live” views…am I a “slimy RINO”, looking to tear down the moral fabric of the country?

Am I a “wishy washy” moderate, who can’t make up his mind about serious issues?

I certainly don’t see myself in these ways.

I thought McCain ran a weak, disjointed, disorganized and uninspiring campaign. I think Huntsman is a threat to run a third party campaign and steal away enough of the center to ensure Obama’s re-election.

I think that the thought of Ron Paul in the White House is the second scariest notion next to four more years of marauding Marxism we have now.

I also believe that there is no “consensus candidate” who will emerge out from behind the fog of disillusionment pulling apart the very people who ought to have one goal in mind. Saving this country from rampant, unchecked leftism.

There is nobody who can galvanize the very, very, very disparate viewpoints or to bring together what should be the common goal for saving this land of ours.

I look at how I myself would be treated on THIS side of the fence…spewing venom at my more “moderate” views….no matter how strenuously I articulated my disdain for the destruction that leftism has wrought.

And THAT venom, THAT lack of acceptance…could be the death knell for Republican success in taking back….saving…this land of ours in our time of greatest need.

when you have one end of the spectrum employing collectivist/statist ideologies and the other side advocating free markets and individual liberty it is impossible to have a “center” since both systems are totally incompatible– to appear to foster a middle only creates some kind of democratic socialism and we all know what a little “socialism,” once implemented, snowballs into

in truth the “center” is the realm of those that refuse to pick a side

to dabble and select issues a la carte- a little here a little there- is hardly noble or wise (the avatar of the “moderate”) and it implies that the center need to be courted and wooed like some cotillion princess